1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to composite laminate material fabrication. More specifically, the invention is an assembly used to support composite laminate materials during the roll press processing thereof at room temperature.
2. Description of the Related Art
Composite laminates consist of fibers embedded in cured resin. Typically, composite laminate parts are “laid up” in layers of fibers and flowable, uncured resin. The “wet” parts are then hand-tooled and placed in an autoclave to remove entrapped air, achieve a desired fiber-to-resin ratio, and cure the resin. This process has two drawbacks. First, the hand tooling is labor intensive and its effectiveness varies from operator to operator. Second, when parts are large, autoclave processing thereof is either impractical or impossible, thereby requiring the design of smaller parts that must be joined or otherwise assembled in order to achieve the ultimate composite laminate part. This results in increased cost and weaker structures as the assembly's joints are never as strong as the composite laminate components thereof.